Workplace Safety

A committee has been meeting every week since January at IUSB to consider safety issues on campus associated with the planned opening of student housing next year. They were reviewing existing safety plans and protocols, working on an awareness and education plan including a network for distributing information, enhancing the safety and security information presented at orientation sessions, identifying locations that need security enhancements. They toured facilities, put suggestion boxes around campus, prepared to issue the first draft of their report after commencement.

SOUTH BEND Seventy teens die a year from injuries suffered in the workplace. Some 70,000 go to the emergency room annually due to workplace injuries, or 192 per day. With those eye-opening statistics, some graphic pictures of injuries and a few live attention-grabbing examples, Cameron Pichan of PASSES (Parents for Student Safety Employment Standards) spoke to several classes of students at Riley High School recently. And he had their attention. "It was definitely fun and entertaining," said senior LaMont Hendrix, "and something I don't mind getting out of class to come to. " Hendrix said Pichan's points that stuck with him included ones on ladder safety, chemical burns and gases.

SOUTH BEND -- One look at a photo of Evan Sears and it's obvious, his life was full of promise. However, that promise was never fully realized as the Mishawaka teen was struck by a car and killed eight years ago while working for the city of South Bend as a summer intern. Part of that promise, though, is carried on in spirit in the form of a $750 scholarship awarded annually to a summer intern of the city. This year's winner, Jenna Plawinski, of Granger, is the first intern to win it a second time.

INDIANAPOLIS -- The head of Indiana's workplace safety agency has stepped down after seven years in the job, during which the department issued some of the largest safety fines in the state's history. Jeff Carter's resignation as deputy state labor commissioner overseeing the Indiana Occupational Safety and Health Administration comes as he deals with Parkinson's disease. The safety agency in August issued more than $450,000 in fines against Pilkington North America over violations found at its Shelbyville plant after a worker was fatally crushed in machinery in 2010.

SOUTH BEND Mallory Dudeck's name is the most recent addition to the Evan J. Sears Memorial Scholarship plaque in Mayor Stephen Luecke's office. Dudeck, 21, a Penn High School graduate who is an elementary education student at Purdue University, was this year's recipient of the Evan J. Sears award. The award goes to a city intern with a $750 scholarship for their essay highlighting workplace safety. It was nine years ago that Sears, an intern with the city, was struck and killed by a driver blinded by the sun while Sears was out on the job. But Sears' memory and legacy live on through this annual scholarship.

INDIANAPOLIS -- The head of Indiana's workplace safety agency has stepped down after seven years in the job, during which the department issued some of the largest safety fines in the state's history. Jeff Carter's resignation as deputy state labor commissioner overseeing the Indiana Occupational Safety and Health Administration comes as he deals with Parkinson's disease. The safety agency in August issued more than $450,000 in fines against Pilkington North America over violations found at its Shelbyville plant after a worker was fatally crushed in machinery in 2010.

Efforts to spot a troubled worker have come a long way in the 10 years since the Bertrand Products shootings, Kathleen Ponko, CEO of a South Bend-based behavioral health management company, said. The company, New Avenues, works with businesses and employees in employee assistance programs and behavioral health benefit administration for companies in Indiana and throughout the country. Ponko said the shooting created an awareness that led to many seminars in the area back then, and that awareness and the steps necessary to deal with troubled workers are still with Michiana today.

SOUTH BEND -- The accident that claimed the life of a 20-year-old student at the University of Notre Dame on Wednesday could result in safety citations for the university. An investigator from the Indiana Occupational Safety and Health Administration arrived at the university Thursday to begin looking into the accident. Declan Sullivan of Long Grove, Ill., died Wednesday night after the scissor lift from which he was reportedly videotaping Notre Dame's football practice toppled over amid wind gusts that reached in excess of 50 mph. According to government safety regulations, "work on or from scaffolds is prohibited during storms or high winds unless a competent person has determined that it is safe for employees to be on the scaffold and those employees are protected by a personal fall arrest system or wind screens.

SOUTH BEND — The scissor lift that was being used by a 20-year-old Notre Dame student when it toppled Wednesday in the wind was not owned by United Rentals, according to a company spokesman. "We were saddened to learn of this tragic accident," said Fred Bratman, a corporate spokesman for United Rentals. "We are continuing to investigate the matter, but have determined that the unit was neither owned nor rented by our company. " If a company sticker was on the lift, it might have been because United Rentals serviced the machine sometime in the past, Bratman said.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Some employers are pressuring workers not to report illnesses and injuries, just one problem that has led to widespread underreporting of workplace safety issues, according to congressional investigators. Occupational Safety and Health Administration inspectors often didn't interview workers to verify what employers claim when keeping tabs on accident and illness rates, the Government Accountability Office report released Monday states. The report said workplace injuries and illnesses went unreported because companies pressured employees to withhold the information, and about a third of health providers said they were pressured to withhold medical treatment so companies could avoid filing reports with OSHA.

SOUTH BEND Mallory Dudeck's name is the most recent addition to the Evan J. Sears Memorial Scholarship plaque in Mayor Stephen Luecke's office. Dudeck, 21, a Penn High School graduate who is an elementary education student at Purdue University, was this year's recipient of the Evan J. Sears award. The award goes to a city intern with a $750 scholarship for their essay highlighting workplace safety. It was nine years ago that Sears, an intern with the city, was struck and killed by a driver blinded by the sun while Sears was out on the job. But Sears' memory and legacy live on through this annual scholarship.